Month: July 2017

It was midnight on Monday September 1st, and Kiyoko was leaving the Office for the night. Andrade had relieved her of duty, and though she had been livid at the dismissal, a part of her was nevertheless glad for the break. They could afford to take breaks now; the demons were more or less cleaned up, only the stragglers needing to be captured. The rest had wandered outside the city, where the county and forestry branches would have to track them down. The gates no longer functioned – they were closed forever.

She climbed the metal staircase to the Elevated platform, thinking again of the reports. She hadn’t been able to be there, of course. She had been tasked with keeping an Eternal down until 8 AM had come and gone, wondering the entire time whether he would truly do as he had said he would. She had wanted to believe him, but at the same time she hadn’t believed it possible for him to subvert what would at that time be his nature. Plagued by doubt, she had stood over the Eternal, cutting into it over and over.

The pain was incredible, as if the searing in his torso had spread to all the rest of him – every limb and digit and his head. He was momentarily gripped by panic and fear and inability to function, but then he passed through that and the pain was a part of him. It belonged, and he was whole. He was himself, more himself than he had ever been. He could see now that he had been only a part of a being previously; that accounted for the loneliness he had felt, the desire to be close to other partial beings, the fear felt in dark rooms at night that something was out there that could overtake him. There was no Bryan and no gamma now. He was simply he. He could remember being a child at the cabin on the lake, with his mother and father, and he could remember being born of the waste, of the absence of life in the dust and mud, and both memories were him.

He was putting his body back together – soaking in the blood and raveling the insides back in, even pulling the bits of intestine out from the stomach to throat to mouth of the other Eternal, who was a mess herself but she was also knitting back together. A human aeon was there, had moved away from him and cowered on the ground as he rose, blood still flowing like rivers through cracks in the pavement, running up his legs and into his stomach. The aeon screamed again and crawled backwards from him.

You left the Eternal. It will be there. It will be waiting. Just let me in now.

“Quit nagging me!” But he knew it was right. He knew because it knew it was right. He should take it now. That would be the sensible thing to do. But he was frightened.

Someone was in the street in front of him. He turned the wheel to go around them but

It’s her!

the figure was crimson. An intense wave of force came out from it and Bryan’s car flipped end over front. Bryan tumbled and glass showered in a flurry around him. The car landed on its top and spun, finally coming to a stop after what felt like minutes but had only been seconds.

The way to the Office wasn’t clear. One demon drifted down the street as if going for a leisurely stroll, but Bryan could see three more in the buildings beside it. He had to double back and take the next street over, and two miles later the same thing happened. This time five demons were clustered in the road and sidewalk, chasing the stray car that happened by. Bryan saw them far off enough that they posed little threat to him, but it wasted his time to redirect his route. He could have just taken one of them, allowed them in. It would have saved time. But he had already chosen.

The cops at the Office doors stopped him until he pulled his badge back out. He wanted to shove them out of the way and shout at them: You just saw me you imbeciles. Instead he told them they should come inside; the streets were unsafe. As he darted in the door they gave him fearful looks, as if to say Even the Office guy is panicking.

The barman broke the silence by asking the old man what he used to do in his younger days.

They passed hours in idle chatter about days past. It was as if they had unspokenly established a rule: no demon talk. Bryan said he pushed paper at an insurance company and had women trouble and his father had just passed away from cancer and a car accident had sliced his arm open, and the two men nodded at the normal problems he wove. When the old man – Bryan never did learn their names – said he had better go home, the barman stretched and said he had better be off too, though he didn’t say where to. Out in the 4 AM breeze, he breathed deep as if the air were fresh, though it was just as smokey as earlier. The old man was already hobbling down the street, eager for bed.

“I’m sure you’ve got work to get to in the morning, eh?” The barman winked at Bryan as he tapped the end of his bat down on the sidewalk – tonk, tonk, tonk. “Lots of insurance forms gonna be heading your way.”

The further he got from the Office and the pair of cops by it, the more damage he saw – smashed windows, wrecked signs, pummeled vehicles. But whoever had done it all had moved on to another area. He only saw a few scattered suspicious types, with scarves over mouths or blunt objects in hand, and they didn’t acknowledge him.

He meant to walk aimlessly, but regardless he ended up at a bar he had once had to clean up, years ago. He remembered it because a woman had attempted to stab him while he was working. She hadn’t been possessed, just mentally ill and drunk. The bar’s owners had refurbished the place quickly, and a week later it was as if nothing had happened there.

Tonight the windows and door were smashed and kicked in, but the lights were on inside. Not hoping for much, he went in. There wasn’t much alcohol behind the bar, much of it having been scattered over the floor. A man stood among the remains, opening a bottle of vodka and pouring a great amount into a mug. He was a large man with large arms that could snap a neck, and hard lines on his face placed there by plenty of scowling.

“Got some of that for me?” Bryan asked, straddling the one upright stool at the bar.

He dreamed of the endless waste. On the crest of a hill he could see below him the figures traversing the dust, the full moon swallowed in their black robes. Above him the stars were innumerable, so deep and so bright in the clear stillness.

His demon was beside him. It was a woman here, with long black hair and an angular face and freckles that would look more at home under red hair.

He was angry at her. Furious. But so furious he couldn’t put it into words or even screams. He was frozen with rage and could only watch the figures go back and forth below him.

“Don’t be angry,” the demon said. “I told you the easy way. You chose the harder route.”